Editor’s Note: This post was written by Brie Weiler Reynolds, the Director of Online Content at FlexJobs and a contributing writer for 1 Million for Work Flexibility. FlexJobs is the award-winning site for telecommuting and flexible jobs, listing thousands of pre-screened, legitimate, and professional-level work-from-home, flexible schedule, part-time, and freelance jobs. Brie provides career and job search advice through the FlexJobs Blog. Learn more at www.FlexJobs.com.

The deadline to file taxes for 2013 is right around the corner: are you prepared? As a freelance writer, you’re in a unique situation when it comes to taxes. Like all freelancers, there are certain dos and don’ts to consider, but there are also writing-specific considerations.

If taxes are still on your to-do list, here are four tax tips for freelance writers. And if you’ve already done your taxes this year, well done! Check out the fourth tip to help yourself prepare in advance for next tax season.

Deduct, deduct, deduct. What exactly constitutes a business-related expense? As a writer, you can cast a pretty wide net. What you can deduct really depends on the type of writing you do, but ideas include:

The peripherals: health insurance premiums (if you buy your own insurance), books and magazines about writing, writing courses and training, money spent in search of freelance writing jobs or other job search expenses, and business meetings.

The extras: subscriptions to general or topic-specific magazines, newspapers, Netflix, and other sources if you use them in the course of your work. According to Stephen Fishman, J.D., “This would include, for example, the cost of any magazine to which you may wish to sell a freelance article.”

Your vacation may be tax deductible. If you took trips where you researched, wrote, or otherwise worked while you were on vacation, your travel expenses may be tax deductible. Deductible expenses include airfare and transportation costs, lodging costs, and 50 percent of your meals. Fishman notes, “If you plan things right, you can even mix pleasure and business and still get a deduction.”

Understand updates to the Home Office Deduction. Unlike previous years, the IRS is actually making it easier to take the home office deduction through a simplified deduction option. If you have a home office that is less than 300 square feet, you can claim $5 per square foot in expenses (utilities, home insurance, rent, mortgage, etc.) and not have to show any proof or calculations. For more than 300 square feet, you’ll need to calculate the percentage of all household expenses that come from your home office space.

Make this the year to start keeping better records! If you find yourself filling out taxes every year and wishing you kept better records, now is the time to start. It’s still early in the year, so keep a folder at your desk for paper receipts, start a file in your email account for receipts you receive online, and keep a spreadsheet that tracks everything in one place. Come this time next year, Future You will be very happy that Current You decided to start a simple system for record keeping.

Most people don’t jump at the chance to do their taxes, but freelancers should give themselves enough time and attention to do a thorough job. Hiring a professional or using software like TurboTax can also help make the most of this yearly chore. The tips above should help get you started, but don’t let them take the place of professional advice if you’re unclear on anything. When it comes to doing your taxes, make sure to dot all your i’s and cross all your t’s — you’re a writer, after all!

Wait, what? But April 15th just passed, you’re saying. Can’t I please get a break from all this tax talk?

Sadly, no. While they’re no fun to think about, if you’re a freelance writer, tax deductions are a part of your life all year round. And trust me, you want to think about tax deductions because they’re going to save you money in the long run.

What Can I Deduct?

Almost anything you buy to use in your business can be deducted on your taxes. In the past, respectable tax payers have been able to convince the IRS that cat food, beer, and even breast implants are viable tax deductions. While you’re probably not going to convince the IRS that your new DDD’s are integral to your freelance writing business, there are plenty of deductions you can safely take:

(Just because I said that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run all this by an accountant or tax pro before filing taxes. Please don’t substitute this blog post for advice from a tax professional.)

Office Supplies – It’s fairly easy to be a “green” freelance writer, but until the world goes entirely paperless we’ll always need supplies like printer ink and pens. Save your receipts when you jet out to the office supply store.

PayPal Fees – Do you grimace in pain every time you see PayPal bite a chunk out of your invoice? Never fear. You can get that approximately 2.9%+.30 back at tax time by writing it off as a bank fee.

Business Phone – This deduction is easy to take if you maintain a separate phone line for your business, but really, in the age of the smart phone, how many of us do that? Just a couple of weeks ago the IRS removed cell phones from their “listed property” category. While tax pros seem to agree that this is good news, the IRS hasn’t yet issued any guidance on how sole-proprietors like us should treat cell phones that we use for both business and personal purposes on our 2010 taxes. Until they do, stay tuned!

Professional Services – Do you use an accountant at the end of the year? A bookkeeper? Maybe a business coach? You used those services to help your business and you can write them off.

Professional Memberships and Networking Events – I’ve been to networking events that set me back hundreds of dollars. Somehow the fact that I’ll be able to write off those fees at the end of the year has helped me more easily swallow forking over that cash.

Mileage – If you drive your personal auto to meet your clients, note your beginning and ending mileage in a mileage log. At the end of the year, you can deduct .50/mile. Your bus, train or taxi fare is deductible, too.

Contractors – The amount you pay anybody you hire to help you work in your business is tax deductible. Just be sure to send your contractors a 1099 by the end of January every year.

Advertising – Did you take out an ad or print up some brochures? Deduct it!

Home Office –The home office deduction can be one of the larger deductions a freelancer like us takes, but it can also trip you up if you’re not careful. Long story short, to take a home office deduction you must use a precisely delineated portion of your home (i.e. a room, a shed, a garage) as your office and for no other purpose. From there, you can deduct the amount that you pay in rent, mortgage, etc. for the percentage of your home used for business. In other words, if you use 100 square feet of your 1,000 square foot house as an office, then you can deduct 10% of your rent or mortgage as part of your home office deduction. For homeowners, this can start to get tricky when it comes to mortgage interest, and don’t even think about selling your home unless you want a huge tax headache. The home office deduction is one of those tax time quandaries that reminds us all why accountants are so invaluable.

Utilities – These go hand in hand with the home office deduction. If you deduct 10% of your rent or mortgage as your home office deduction, you can also deduct 10% of your utility bills. In my case, these amounts are usually under $20 per month, but they add up over the year.

Nothing Personal, It’s Just Business

Keep in mind when it comes to tax deductions that you can only deduct the portion of anything – your utilities, your PayPal fees, etc. – that you use for business. The IRS tends to frown upon sloppy bookkeeping and letting your personal finances bleed all over your Schedule C business taxes. Because of that, next week I’ll provide answers to the age old question, “How on earth do I keep track of all these tax deductions anyway?”

There are thousands of tax deductions out there. As a freelance writer, do you regularly take any tax deductions that didn’t make this list? Share with your fellow writers so we can all keep Uncle Sam out of our back pockets.

Jennifer Escalona is not a tax professional and this post should not be taken as tax advice. She’s just a freelance writer who has battled the tax laws and won.

One of the perks of being a freelance writer is that we don’t have a lot of major expenses when we start up our businesses. When I started freelancing, I already had a computer and an internet connection. Just because we start out with very few expenses doesn’t mean that we can’t take deductions for our business expenses when tax season rolls around. We all know the standard deductions: the home office expense, any computer equipment bought specifically for business use and that sort of thing, but there are a lot of deductions that are easy to forget.

Research Expenses

Any costs you incur while researching an article can be considered business expenses. If you buy a book, drive to an interview or even buy a movie ticket in order to review a film, those expenses are a necessary part of doing business. You can’t use this as a way to write off all your book purchases and other expenses, unfortunately, but as long as you can connect a receipt to a specific project, you have a good chance of being able to deduct it.

You can make use of this opportunity to deduct some travel expenses on occasion. Unless the sole purpose of a trip is to conduct research for a project — no trips to see family or vacations — you can’t write off the whole trip. But if you were to make time for an in-person interview or do some other research that produces an article or another project, you can write off some of the associated expenses. Because the situations can vary, it’s important to talk to a tax preparer to see exactly what you can write off.

Child Care Credit

If you pay for child care so that you can work on freelancing projects, you can qualify for the Child and Dependent Care Credit. There are some requirements: if you’re married, both you and your spouse must earn income. You also have to be able to document the child care. While this option is a credit, rather than a deduction, it’s still overlooked by many freelancers and can make a big difference in your tax burden.

Your Tax Preparer

While you may be able to do your taxes yourself, working with a CPA or another tax preparer can make the process a lot easier. Even better, the amount you pay to your tax preparer for completing the income tax return for your business is also a business expense and may be tax deductible. The same holds true of any other costs you incur in the course of doing business, whether you’re buying a product or paying for a service.